(upbeat music)
- [Interpreter] Hello, everyone.
I come from a family of storytellers,
deaf storytellers.
I'm third generation deaf,
and what that really means is that,
from the moment I was born, as soon
as my eyes opened, I had a world
of language presented to me.
I had access to sign language,
and that's an integral part of who I am.
I'm also only part of 5% of the deaf community,
so I'm a minority within a minority.
This 5% of deaf people was born to deaf parents.
So let me tell you a little bit about my grandfather.
He's well-regarded in the deaf community.
He's looked up to as a master of our language,
a master storyteller.
When he went to college, he chose Gallaudet University,
because it was, and is, the only university
in the world that was established
primarily for deaf students.
When he was a student, they had a literary competition,
and my grandfather entered it,
and of course, he wanted to win.
So he thought long and hard about
what the most challenging poem would be
that he could use in this competition.
He found something absolutely absurd.
He chose Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carroll.
The poem is absolutely nonsensical.
It's full of language play.
And he said, "Well, why can't I do the same thing
"in sign language, and bring these images out in sign?"
So he did it.
He told that poem, and absolutely brought
all of Carroll's images to life
so vividly, that the audience was stunned.
It was groundbreaking because nobody had ever seen
that done with their language.
This was in the 1940s, and at the time,
nobody thought that sign language was a real language,
like any other spoken language.
When my grandfather was in college,
it wasn't a language, but by the time
my parents were college students,
it was on the verge of being recognized
that way, and then I had grown up in a world
where it had already been recognized as a language.
But in my grandfather's day,
deaf people were ashamed of signing.
But when my grandfather told that poem,
it opened people's eyes to a world
in which language play was possible.
They understood that sign language could be used
to share and tell stories.
And had his story not been documented through film,
it would've disappeared.
Film is how we document and preserve our stories.
It's how we carry on our values
and our knowledge to future generations.
My grandfather has since passed on,
but his original Jabberwocky has inspired new Jabberwockys.
Now, remember I said I'm part of just 5%?
What's life like for the remaining 95%?
The other 95% of deaf people are born
into hearing families, which mean
they aren't born into families
where they have immediate access to sign language.
Early access to sign language in
those first few years of life are so critical.
Having no language access from birth
to five means you're being deprived of language,
and language deprivation has lifelong consequences.
It creates cognitive delays, which lead
to academic struggles, and struggles
in adulthood, all because of having a weak foundation
from early childhood, and this is happening
all over the world, including in the United States.
Access to language is a basic human right.
So why is this such a complicated problem?
Because families who find out that
their child are deaf are not connected to resources.
When they find out their child is deaf,
they go through a grieving process.
They're often confused, and they're given misinformation.
They feel so disconnected from communities.
But with language, we can create human connections,
so I'm here to let you know that we have resources.
We have a wealth of resources in the deaf community.
For example, we have a movement
that's taking place through social media,
with the hashtag whyisign.
It encourages families to use sign language
with each other, and with their deaf children,
to connect, as family members.
My siblings, and a friend of mine,
created an app called The ASL App,
which was designed to teach conversational phrases in ASL.
Our intent in making the app was to connect communities.
Learning just a few signs opens
up doors to new worlds and new people.
I want to see all doors, everywhere, opened for connection.
I also created the Motion Light Lab
where we integrate creative literature
and digital technologies
to create immersive learning experiences.
Pretty awesome, right?
I also led the development of a storytelling tool
that allows anyone to create bilingual storybook apps.
That's what we do.
We create apps that make stories available
in a signed language and a written language,
and it's this work that has transformed
how we think of reading.
Our apps give the opportunity for deaf children
to learn to read, to see a story told
in a signed language, and make connections
to the printed word.
These apps also support their literacy development,
and not only that, they
also encourage families to learn to sign.
As families navigate this new world,
they can use these apps to share stories
with their children, and sign along
with the stories, and share that love
of our stories and our traditions,
that are so needed in connecting us.
So how do we make these apps?
In every case, we've assembled a team
of talented deaf artists in the community.
We have storytellers, illustrators, videographers.
We create these teams entirely of deaf people
because we are a solution to this problem.
We also train, and teach, and invest
in the digital skills of these talents
in the deaf community.
This ability is power.
It creates the ability to document
our visual language, and tell our stories,
which is representation.
Our work not only benefits a deaf child,
it benefits communities.
With this expansion in literature,
having literature available in
both signed languages and written languages,
it expands our views on the world.
Everyone's view on the world.
This then, in turn, allow connections
with people in other countries.
I've worked with deaf people in 11 other countries.
We've translated them into 11 sign languages,
because sign language is not universal.
Every country has their own signed language.
In doing all of this international work,
we have found folk tales and folklore
that is traditionally only passed
down through oral means, and we've made
these stories come alive for deaf children,
celebrating our humanity and our human diversity,
as well as our cultures, in an inclusive way.
Storytelling gifts from my grandfather
that have been passed down to my family,
and to me, are now being passed down to my son.
I adopted my son when he was four years old,
and at the time, he had had no exposure to language.
I understood language deprivation
in new ways, because it was up close
and personal, in my own home.
So my deaf son, now, after two years
of having lots of love, and language input,
and stories, has now absolutely blossomed,
and now, he's telling us stories.
Access to language means access to stories,
and that's the power of stories.
Stories create who we are.
They create our ways of understanding the world.
They create ways of understanding our shared humanity.
Stories connect us.
Thank you.
(hand waves applause)
(upbeat music)